Mallory Park competition winner's tribute to Ollie Bridewell

Having won MCN’S THINK! Motorcycle Academy Reporter Competition, Dave Smith and his wife Diane made the journey to Mallory last weekend to file this special report.

“When the THINK! representative phoned to say that I had won the special reporter competition for Mallory I was a little shocked and then relieved!  First, shocked, because we don’t win things usually – but then relieved that I had not bought the Mallory tickets in advance!” 

“Unfortunately the weekend was overshadowed with the sad loss of Ollie Bridewell on Friday, which cast a sombre cloud over the meeting.  The reaction and support from the British Superbikes paddock was overwhelming with a special tribute being paid to the young rider on the grid and all our thoughts are with Ollie’s family at this time.”

“When arriving at the THINK Motorcycle Academy, I met up with the THINK! team and learned all about their campaign and their ethos of educating riders to give their bike the skills they deserve.”

“I mentioned that as I had been riding for 34 years, done the Institute of Advanced Motorists test, and a local police organised advanced course so I had not really thought about how the THINK! campaign would apply to someone like me. How wrong I was. “

“The beauty of the THINK! Motorcycle Academy is that it won’t patronise you or preach to you and you may just learn something that will keep you from harms way! Oh, and you will also see some famous faces there as well. When we were there Championship hotshot Jonathan Rea gave a talk, followed by three times British Superbikes Champion John Reynolds.”

“It became apparent that the ‘figurehead’ John Reynolds was not just there as a personality to attract the visitors, he is very passionate about the campaign. This dedication is all the more impressive considering he is also still very busy helping Suzuki with development and is an extremely busy man at race weekends.”

“All this, and a cracking days racing which saw ‘Shakey’ Byrne take his first win for the Stobart Vent-Axia Honda, and then Kiyonari bounce back with victory in the second race.”
 
For your chance to be a THINK! Motorcycle Academy reporters at Croft in August simply tell us why “Road Riders should Keep Racing for the Track…..” and email your suggestion to think@capitalize.co.uk